


The Forgotten

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Series: Whumptober 2019 [3]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sickfic, This is Jason of course there's implied character death)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-01 13:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: He’s always heard voices when he’s really sick or had weird dreams. It’s something he doesn’t really like thinking about. It’s probably because of all those hallucinatory concoctions he’d been exposed to when he was a kid. That can’t have been possibly good for him. And ever since Jason died…. Well, he’s always been the Robin of Dick’s nightmares, the figure of all his shortcomings and failures.So of course, when he sees something with Jason’s face standing in front of his door, standing right next to the Jason who’s very definitely another hallucination, Dick does the only reasonable thing to do in that situation: he punches it in the face.





	The Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3: Hallucination

_What do you say, Dickhead? You ready to play?_

The Jason in his head, the Jason in pixie boots and a permanent grin on his face, Dick decides, is a little shit who should really leave Dick alone when he’s sick.

_What? You chickening out?_

The thing is, Dick’s never really had the best grip on reality to begin with, especially not where Jason’s concerned. 

He’s always heard voices when he’s really sick or had weird dreams. It’s something he doesn’t really like thinking about. It’s probably because of all those hallucinatory concoctions he’d been exposed to when he was a kid. That can’t have been possibly good for him. And ever since Jason died…. Well, he’s always been the Robin of Dick’s nightmares, the figure of all his shortcomings and failures.

Jason haunts his nightmares. A lot. He doesn’t even need the excuse of fear gas. Jason’s memory is always just hidden in a corner of Dick’s subconscious, waiting to unleash hell whenever Dick least expects it.

And he _is _dead. Jason’s dead. For years now. His memory just likes to mess with head from time to time. It doesn’t help that his temperature’s apparently around 102 right now and he feels like he’s about to pass out any second. He doesn’t really have the steadiest grip on reality when he opened the door to the loud and insistent knocking on his door.

_Who do you think that is? I wouldn’t open it if I were you. Wouldn’t want them to see you like this._

So of course, when he sees something with Jason’s face standing in front of his door, standing right next to the Jason who’s very definitely another hallucination, Dick does the only reasonable thing to do in that situation: he punches it in the face.

He nearly falls over and it takes a moment for the world to stop spinning. He’s almost surprised when his fist does connect and the Jason Todd doppleganger actually topples to the ground.

Not a hallucination then. Maybe a shapeshifter? Or just a very vivid nightmare.

“Dick what the fuck?” the imposter says. It tries to get up and step into Dick’s face but Dick takes a step backwards.

“Stay back,” he says.

If it is a shapeshifter, it’s not a very good one. It’s too old, for one thing, closer to seventeen than fifteen. Too tall. Too broad. Jason was a short kid, but he could have been tall if he had the chance. 

It would have been what Jason would probably look like if the Joker hadn’t blown him up. Or maybe that was the point. Strike where it really hurt the most. Show him what could have been.

If that is the case, Dick thinks that’s just crossing a line, even for a villain. 

_You think they give a fuck? Jesus Dickhead, you’re stupider than I thought. Make a run for it already. _

“Oh for the love of--” The imposter lets out a growl, running a hand through its head and making it stick up in odd angles. It’s almost achingly familiar, a habit Dick had forgotten Jason had. 

He can’t even claim it as a habit, really. He doesn’t actually know. He’s seen Jason do it about once or twice in the entire time they’ve known each other. It’s not like they saw each other a lot. It seems like something he’d do, though. The Jason in Dick’s head definitely does it often enough.

_You are a mess Dick Grayson._

“Stay back,” Dick says again. He tries to stand up straight and pretend that he’s not leaning nearly all his weight against the doorframe. He’s really sick. Why can’t people stop messing with him for at least a day so he can recover?

“You snuck me out on your bike one weekend to see the circus. It was a fun time until your Titans friends crashed the part and took some villains with them, which wasn’t so bad, either. When we got back to the tower, I walked in on you making out with that alien princess and you had to bribe me with Neopolitan ice cream so that I wouldn’t tell Bruce about it. It’s me, alright?”

_I still told Bruce, you know. He was _pissed. _Not sure if it was ‘cause you snuck me out or ‘cause you had friends that weren’t him. _

Jason’s probably the only person who’d know that, but Dick’s hallucinations usually had all his memories, too, so he can’t really be sure. And hallucination really is a more likely option than seeing your dead brother suddenly standing at your door on a random Tuesday night.

Maybe he’s caught in a nightmare or something. 

(Unfortunately, this wouldn’t actually be the first time it’s happened. He’s had some pretty terrible nightmares over the years.)

“What are you doing here?” Dick asks, deciding to play along. 

The fake Jason grits its teeth. “We need to talk and I need your help,” it says. “But first you need to get out of that room and this building _right now._”

“My help,” Dick echoes. That was its first mistake. The Jason he knew would never willingly ask for help.

“Look,” fake Jason says. “I’m alive. I don’t know how the fuck it happened but it did, and I need you to get it together because you need to get out of this place _right now_.”

_Cause that’s gonna work. God, this guy’s a bigger idiot than you._

“Yeah, no. If we’re talking, we’re doing it inside.” Dick lets out a breath and takes another step back, letting go of the door frame. He miraculously does not collapse. It’s probably a bad idea to let something that so clearly wants to hurt him into his home when he’s worse than defenseless. But then again, it’s not everyday something with his dead little brother’s face knocks at his door and asks for his help. It’s not like he can say _no. _

_You’ve never been good at that, are you? Always helping out people even when they’re probably out to kill you. You should be careful, Dickhead. It’s like you haven’t learned from me. Careful, you might be next._

_Careful. It’s like you’re looking for a reason to hurt him._

Fake-Jason steps towards him. He makes a motion as if to grab Dick but Dick holds his hand up. It’s pure instinct. Dick sits down because he can’t really stand anymore and the fake-Jason sits across from him.

“Okay,” Dick says. “Tell me what happened.”

Fake-Jason opens his mouth, presumably to answer, when the room explodes.

Dick blacks out. He thinks he hears Robin’s laughter from somewhere above him. 

\--

Things are a blur.

Dick catches flashes of it, which is nice and not-nice at the same time. He thinks Not-Jason grabs him by the shirt and pushes him out the window. He knows he barely stuck the landing and he definitely probably sprained his foot. 

He knows not-Jason drags him somewhere. Grabbing his forearm and just running. He loses time after a few corners. He thinks he sees the glint of a gun. He definitely hears bullets sailing through the air.

_Getting yourself in trouble again, Dickie_? A much more familiar version of Jason says in his head. _Haven’t you learned your lesson by now? You think Bruce would survive losing you, too?_

_Then again, maybe you’d deserve it. Not like you ever did him any good._

“Shut the fuck up,” he mutters. 

They’ve stopped. They’re in front of a warehouse. Dick is swaying on his feet and trying not to put too much weight on his bad foot. His limbs are trembling. He’s not quite breathing right. Not-Jason is giving him an odd look.

“We’ll probably be safe here,” he says.

“What the hell was that?” he asks, voice raspy. _Caught you off-guard, didn’t he? Told you to be careful. You never learn, do you? You never listen,_ the Jason in his head says._ Some hero you are. Remember what happened the last time you weren’t prepared. _

Dick thinks that it’s fundamentally unfair that he has to deal with two Jasons tormenting him while he’s sick.

He opens his mouth to say just that, except the world is tilting unnaturally and his knees are buckling underneath him.

He realizes he’s passing out a second before it actually happens.

The Jason that calls out his name sounds scared. Huh.

Must be the start of a nightmare then.

\--

_Robin walks a fine line. Robin walks a tightrope. Robin jumps. Robin flies through the air like the bird._

_Robin looks at him. Robin has Jason’s smile and laughs Jason’s laugh._

_“And just where do you think you’re going, Dick?” he asks._

_“Home,” Dick says. “I’m going home.”_

_“You sure you know the way?” Robin asks. “You sure you still have one?”_

_“Of course I do.”_

_“He kicked you out, remember? You think he’s forgiven you for not being there for him yet. For not being there for _me._”_

_“I’m not--That isn’--”_

_“I called you, you know? Of course you do. You still have that voicemail saved up, like it’s gonna make up for not answering when I called you. I called you and you didn’t answer. You promised you would. Fat lot of good that did._

_You think things would have turned out differently, if you were there?”_

_“Shut up,” Dick says. “Shut up!”_

_Robin cackles. _

_Around them, a bomb ticks down down to zero and the world explodes._

\--

Dick wakes up and he’s in…. 

He’s in Wayne manor. In his room. He has no idea how he got there. 

He remembers things but not all of them. Probably a fucked up nightmare. Two Jasons in his head. One fully grown and one eternally Robin. His building exploding. It was pretty messed up.

Except.

Except he looks down and his foot still hurts like hell. Sprained, from the feel of it.

“Dick?”

His head whirls. He hadn’t noticed Tim at his bedside. The kid looks like shit. His hair’s a mess and there are bags under his eyes. He’s in pajamas, too, which means he probably stayed the night in the manor, which he rarely does.

“How are you feeling?” Tim asks.

“I’m fine,” he says automatically. When Tim raises an eyebrow, he amends, “better than before, at any rate.”

He’s still running a fever, but the Jason in his head’s gone, though he thinks he can still hear his voice, if he closes his eyes.

“We found you in one of the safehouses in Gotham,” Tim says, which what the fuck. Dick had been in Bludhaven. He knows he was. He was nowhere near Gotham when he passed out. “You were unconscious. Severely dehydrated from the fever and injured from the…”

“The explosion,” Dick says, feeling numb. “The explosion was real?”

Tim looks stricken. It’s answer enough.Dick feels a wave of nausea wash over him.

“No one else was there,” Tim says quickly. “You were the only one that got hurt. It’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

Dick closes his eyes. Okay. That meant he was a target, then. Just him. someone wanted to make a statement but also limit the collateral damage.

And also brings up a lot more questions. He got away. From what he remembers--and he doesn’t trust his memory when he’s sick like that, but from what he remembers, he wasn’t alone. Someone pushed him out the window.

Someone who had… 

Someone who had Jason’s face.

“There was one other thing,” Tim says. “This was tied around your wrist, when we found you.” He holds up a Gotham Knights pendant, the kind you can just buy off the streets. Dick’s heart just about climbs to his throat. Thank god he’s not hooked up to a heart monitor. 

“I mean, I think it’s nothing but Bruce wanted to ask if it meant something,” Tim says. “He said you hated the Knights.”

Dick did hate the Knights, but Jason loved them. Would drag him or Bruce to every game, which they’d inevitably lose. The pendant had been one of his codes with Jason, the kind that not even Bruce was privy to. Color was where they were meeting and when. That specific design meant Jason wanted privacy. 

_Come alone, _it told him. _Warehouse on the corner of fifth street. Friday at midnight. I need your help. Don’t tell anyone else._

Dick swallows. No one else knew that code. _No one. _That was the point. Jason needed a way to signal to Dick he needed him without anyone else knowing because sometimes, even Robins need a way to get away from Batman. 

Jason was _real. _The Jason he’d spoken to was real. And he was asking for Dick’s help. Nothing else mattered right now, really.

He hears a Robin cackling in the wind.

_It’s probably a trap, you know? But you’re still gonna go because what if it isn’t? Are you really that desperate for a second chance? _

_You’re not getting me back, Dickhead. You’re never making up for those mistakes. But by all means, feel free to self-destruct._

The fever hasn’t completely let up yet, apparently.

“Nothing,” he tells Tim. “Just something I picked off the streets, I guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not continue this fic, depending on what happens in life. *shrugs*
> 
> I'm acediscowlng on tumblr :D


End file.
